Victory Outreach minister Garcia dies

Obituary: Freddie Garcia invited drug addicts into his home and eventually built a nationally acclaimed faith-based ministry that helped untold numbers kick their drug habits, just as he had.

By Guillermo X. Garcia and J. Michael Parker

Published 5:26 pm, Friday, October 16, 2009

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Freddie Garcia believed spiritual healing was key.

Freddie Garcia believed spiritual healing was key.

Victory Outreach minister Garcia dies

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Freddie Garcia wasn't a 9-to-5 preacher who left his work at the church.

A reformed drug addict, he was a minister 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Garcia, who died Friday, invited drug addicts into his home and eventually built a nationally acclaimed faith-based ministry that helped untold numbers of addicts kick their drug habits - just as he had.

Victory Outreach ministry, which he and his wife, Ninfa, launched in 1970, became so successful that in 1990, President George H.W. Bush gave him a national Achievement Against the Odds award at the White House.

Some 15 years later, Garcia opened a modern, $3.6 million drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, New Victory Fellowship, at Castroville Road and Southwest 39th Street.

Garcia, 71, died at a local hospital. He'd been on kidney dialysis for nine years, said attorney Luis Vera Jr., who'd known Garcia more than 20 years.

Garcia's best-selling book, "Outcry in the Barrio," detailed his life story and influenced many young drug addicts to seek help.

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"Any church leader around here, or the country, who helps addicts or alcoholics got their training or inspiration from Freddie," Vera said.

"Freddie did not believe in methadone as a treatment for heroin addicts," he added. "He believed that spiritual healing was the key, and that is why his program was so successful."

Vera said Garcia was used to "having families drop off their husband, wife, sons or daughters at all hours of the day or night" at the West Side facility because they just couldn't deal with the addicts anymore.

Born in 1938, he met Ninfa in 1963. The couple lived on the streets, and Garcia was an addict.

"I went through a lot of treatment programs but didn't find an answer," he often said. "They were dealing with the branches of the problem. They weren't dealing with the root, which is sin."

After turning to religion at Teen Challenge in Los Angeles in 1967, Garcia married Ninfa and attended the Latin American Bible Institute in La Puente, Calif., graduating in 1970.

He then returned to San Antonio determined to help drug addicts in the barrio change their lives. His ministry was modeled after that of Teen Challenge.

The Garcias invited addicts into their little home on North San Eduardo Street, a half-block south of Culebra Avenue. The couple became parents, teachers and mentors, encouraging addicts to accept religion and take responsibility for their lives.

When more addicts came, Garcia enlarged their little house. A visitor late at night often could find guests sleeping on couches, dining room benches, beds and floors - wherever there was room for a tired body to rest.

Years later, after his ministry's success was nationally recognized, "Pastor Freddie," as he was known, said he couldn't believe that he, an ex-junkie, was walking on the front lawn of the White House as a guest of the president.

But he gave God all the credit and opened his arms and his home to thousands who came asking for the same change in their lives.

"I never ask them if they're here to change. I just take them in because I know what God's going to do," he told the San Antonio Express-News in 2002. "Nobody makes them stay. If they stay because they want to change their lives."

He gave them the Bible, fatherly discipline and love.

"I thank God for Freddie. To this day, he lives a surrendered life," said Jaime Mata, an ex-addict who was changed through Garcia's ministry and then joined him in ministering to addicts. "Freddie has no care for himself. It's all about other people. He's a relentless teacher of the truth."

Mata said Garcia's ministry enables a drug addicts to be sheltered and protected from outside distractions during the time it takes them to kick their habits and develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Garcia said he didn't push any of his children to continue his ministry, believing it must be a call from God. His youngest son, Jubal, heard the call at age 18 and began training to assist in his father's ministry and eventually succeed him.

"A lot of preachers were never there for their kids; their ministries were more important. But I never experienced anything like that," Jubal Garcia said in 2002.